This tutorial shows you how to fade several objects onto the Flash stage at once. You can use this technique in all versions of Flash, except that in versions of Flash prior to CS3, Classic Tweens are called Motion Tweens. The following video was done in CS4, but, again, the only difference between Flash versions is the change of tween names.

The following steps fade several objects onto the Stage at the same time. These instructions assume that all the objects you are animating are currently on the same layer. If you already have your symbols on separate layers, skip the steps for distributing the symbols to layers. For this procedure to work, all objects you animate must be symbols.

SHIFT + click all the objects you want to animate.

Right-click one of the selected objects and choose Distribute to Layers.

Clear the frames on the new layers. Flash will insert new keyframes in the frame directly behind the last cleared frame on each layer.

In the top layer of the group of layers you want to animate, click the animation end-point frame to select it, and then, on the bottom layer of the group of layers, SHIFT + click the animation end-point frame. This selects all the frames in the animations’ end-point columns.

Right-click the selection and choose Insert Keyframe from the pop-up menu.

Click the animation start-point keyframe on the top layer of the group to select it, and then click the Pasteboard to deselect the symbol. (Deselecting the symbol here is necessary because, while Flash does select the symbol when you click the frame, the selection is not in the correct state to apply an Alpha affect. The purpose for clicking the start-point frame was to get us back to that frame.)

SHIFT + click each of the symbols you want to animate to select them.

In the Symbol Properties panel, under Color Effect, click the Style drop-down and choose Alpha.

Set the Alpha percentage to 0.

Click the end-pointkeyframe on the bottom layer to select it, and then SHIFT + click start-pointkeyframe on the top layer to select all the frames on all the layers you want to animate.

Right-click the selection and choose Create Classic Tween from the pop-up menu.

Intricate stuff, huh? Your objects should now fade onto the Stage. I probably don’t need to point out here the necessity for precision. But I’ll do so anyway. It’s important that you follow these steps exactly. I suggest you watch the above video.